An essay I wrote a few years back for school on the first half of the book Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood, specifically about the way Elaine was treated as a child and how it effected her adult self. I got an A on it.

Over the period of time, as domestic violence has propagated in our society, the focus of sociologists and researchers on this topic has increased. In family studies, abuse and domestic violence has emerged as an area of great interest because of the impact not being limited to a single generation. Over the period of time, a deliberate effort was made on the parts of researchers to properly define the boundaries of domestic violence and lay down clear foundations about the actions that constitute domestic violence and abuse. The definitions provided by Pence and Paymar (1996) and Mullender and Humphreys (1998) are often used as standards for researchers in the field of domestic violence. Domestic violence is usually associated with intimate relationship, including the ones between husband and wife and other categories of romantic relationships. According to Pence and Paymar (1996) and Mullender and Humphreys (1998), domestic violence is characterized by actions which fall into the domain of different kinds of abuse including physical, emotional and sexual. Intimidating actions, belittling and threatening also constitute domestic violence. Domestic violence is often associated with abusive actions performed by men against the women, but there have been instance of men being subjected to domestic violence in abusive relationships as well. Domestic violence can also occur among couples belonging to the same sex. Power and Control issues form one of the most important dimensions of domestic violence and the purpose of the abusive actions is often to apprise one of the partners of the authority of the other. Domestic violence is a primary manifestation of the exercise of control from one party.